1997 Rover - Austin 800 820i review from UK and Ireland

In cold weather sometimes starter wouldn't engage, just makes a click noise.

In cold weather only fires on 3 cylinders occasionally until warmed up.

Engine rev idle erratic.

Big, and very comfy are my overriding impression of this car. Bought to replace a Vectra, so the seats were like sitting on an armchair!

I'm afraid this car had the most squeaks and rattles of any car I've ever owned, and although these things are big, they don't have any feeling of solidity, I've just bought a Saab of a similar age and it feels immensely more solid.

Steering feel is best described as the wheels are there somewhere, but it's hard to tell if they're connected!

Ride is OK, but a bit floaty and barge like, and handling is alright until you go that tiny bit faster than normal, then it's not, I won't even mention wet weather handling.

The performance is pretty good for such a big car with a 2.0 litre engine, but I always felt you had to rag it to get anyway really quickly, and then it starts sounding all harsh and nasty, I was getting 30 mpg on average, which I think is OK for one so big and heavy.

Lastly, we come to the interior, mock wood galore, with Rover tastefully plastered in gold fancy italics on the doors. What the hell were they thinking? These cars, when new in '97, were up against, supposedly, BMW 5-series, Merc E-classes and Audi A6s, and obviously the other mass produced stuff like Omegas, Scorpios etc. None of these cars had an interior that would've been tasteful in 1978 but not in 1997!

In the end, I think these cars were fine in '86 when they were launched but very outdated by the late 90s when mine was built, and come across as virtually obsolete in 2008.

However, I paid £600 for mine, all the electrics worked, the climate control was spot on, and it was very clean and tidy, maybe that's why you still see the odd one floating around.

I moved it on as I couldn't stand the amazing amount of rattles and squeaks, which shows just how much the British workforce gave a monkeys about the quality of the job they were doing, or was it just the assembly equipment was crap?